Mutant clue opens up new front against cystic fibrosis

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2003

PARIS (AFP) — Experts believe they have found a molecular chink in the crippling lung disease known as cystic fibrosis, the British journal Nature reports.

An inherited disease, cystic fibrosis is a disorder in which the lungs become clogged with a thick, gluey mucus inhabited by a bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Infections by P. aeruginosa are the leading cause of death from cystic fibrosis, and patients with this disease usually have a life expectancy of just 20 to 30 years.

One reason for this is that antibiotics often cannot attack the bug, because it is cocooned in a sugary "biofilm" in the lungs.

Protected this way, the bacterium can be up to a thousand times more difficult to kill than pathogens that are free-living.

Researchers led...